As every person with more than a very superficial knowledge of Communism knows, Marx predicted that “the dictatorship of the proletariat” would sweep the world. The Lenin-Stalin variations of Marxism, while abandoning the liberal features of the Marxist philosophy, have not at any time given up the idea of Communist world hegemony. Many times in the course of their writings, both Lenin and Stalin express the idea that Communism must destroy the capitalistic system or be destroyed by it. Furthermore the actions of the Soviet leaders subsequent to the termination of World War II have clearly indicated that they fear a free interchange of goods and ideas with the peoples of free nations. Such commerce would be too dangerous, cause discontent, lead to violence and rebellion. Artificial restraints on the natural flow of commerce cannot forever remain effective; and once that commerce is developed, even surreptitiously, the Soviet is doomed by the very lightning which it calls down upon the heads of democratic nations—revolution. We may, therefore, take it as established fact that the fixed objective of Soviet policy is to destroy freedom throughout the world as quickly as possible.
At first possibly the Soviet oligarchy expected that the Communist revolution would spread spontaneously. Long ago, being realistic, they must have abandoned hope of this. Instead, they seek to accomplish the same result by other means. One of these, constant agitation among the populations of other nations against any manifestation of governmental authority, has had the effect of creating some malcontents and a certain number of Communists and Communist sympathizers. Conditions favoring growth of these classes are present when the nation is disorganized and its people are discouraged. When these classes attain sizable proportions, and concurrently the rest of the population is sufficiently apathetic, the mere threat of intervention by the Red Army has been sufficient to cause existing governments to fall.
Such conditions obtained within some of the defeated nations of Europe after the war. Where proximity to the Soviet Union or other circumstance caused the threat of invasion to appear to be both possible and probable, the Communists were successful and a number of such nations were captured in bloodless coups; unfortunately the bloodlessness did not persist after the capture.
Another situation productive of discontent is created by economic stress. Marx claims that alternate periods of prosperity and depression are necessarily concomitant with the capitalistic system. When a shortage of goods exists, industries expand to meet demand; when saturation is reached, and only replacement demand is present, the industries find themselves with “an epidemic of overproduction.” If Soviet foreign policy can speed up the alternation of these cycles and intensify them, the Reds feel that they can artificially create conditions of discontent on the one hand and apathy on the other which might make possible a Communist coup. If Soviet policy is examined in this light, it loses some of its irrationality.
The greatest possible expansion of industry occurs during war, or in the course of preparation for it. This also creates a dislocation of industry through the removal of workmen from their normal peacetime pursuits and their relocation in defense production. When peace comes, or the threat of war is removed, industry must again be completely reoriented and provisions made for the reabsorption of the defense workers. It can readily be seen that this cycle creates the maximum industrial strain. If the masters of the Soviet Union can, by alternately promising peace and threatening hostilities, cause the United States to go through the mobilization-de- mobilization cycle a sufficient number of times, the Red leaders feel that they may be able to create conditions under which our government will be seriously weakened.
The leaders of the U.S.S.R. are opportunists. If, through disbelief in Soviet threats, or through discouragement induced by the economic burden of defense, the United States failed to meet Soviet mobilization with adequate preparation, so that the Kremlin could feel confident of victory, the war would come at that time.
At the end of World War II, all of the agencies of Soviet propaganda in America were employed in a great campaign to induce our nation to disband the greatest and most powerful armed forces ever mobilized in all of human history. The natural desires of our young men to return to their families, and of their parents to have them return, were exploited.
Confident that the desire of men everywhere throughout the world was for peace and good will, and relying upon the apparently sound basis for the abolition of international distrust which had been established by our alliances and agreements, our leaders yielded to the clamor raised by Red propaganda. Our Army and Navy were precipitously disbanded.
As soon as American demobilization had proceeded to a point where the Soviet Union felt safe in embarking upon aggression, the Red Army was used to threaten the adjacent disorganized post war states with invasion unless they accepted Communist domination. State after state fell before this threat, until the United States was forced to reassemble large armed forces to prevent the world from being conquered by intimidation. The Russian pressure was then withdrawn and America again made large scale reductions in defense expenditures. No sooner had the reductions in our Armed Forces been completed than South Korea was attacked, and again our nation was forced to build up its armament industry. When they saw that no further gains could be made by fighting, the Reds were willing to agree to an armistice.
Since the cessation of hostilities in Korea, the people of the United States have been subjected to propaganda to reduce armaments. The Kremlin has assured us that the objectives of International Communism are peaceful. The membership of the Communist Party of America has cried that the crushing burden of armaments is impoverishing the nation, that true national defense rests upon a sound economy.
There are strong elements of truth in these statements. Armaments are impoverishing the world. True national defense does rest upon a sound economy. A navy, an army, and an air force are expensive. They do come directly from the living standards of the people. We should not maintain armed forces, which are larger than absolutely necessary. But so long as large Red armed forces remain in existence, an adequate balanced American defense force must be maintained regardless of sacrifice, unless we are willing to sacrifice eternal freedom for temporary financial advantage.
The recent conference of foreign ministers at Berlin clearly indicated just how much fundamental change there has been in the objectives of International Communism. None whatsoever! Nevertheless, the Communists will continue to call “Peace Congresses,” to avow their peaceful intentions. And to these vows, they will pledge their faith! For Americans who may be tempted by their desire for easier economic conditions to place credence in the Soviet protestations, this case study of the faith which the Soviets may be expected to keep is presented for consideration. It is the story of the betrayal of Poland.
Ethnologically the Poles are Slavs, as are the Russians. Many causes contribute to the differences in race and religion which exist between these two peoples of common homeland and ancestry. Perhaps one of the greatest of these causes is that the rivers of Russia generally flow north and south, while those of Poland flow east and west. During the period when the national characteristics of the two peoples were being developed, travel tended to follow the waterways. The difference in the direction of the rivers tended to cause Russia to have commerce with Greece and the Eastern Empire and hence to come under the influence of the Byzantine culture, while Poland had more intercourse with the West. The missionaries who Christianized the races came to the Russians from the south, while those who came to the Poles were from the west, hence Russia was Greek Orthodox and Poland Roman Catholic. Differences in religion as well as lack of commerce have served to accentuate the differences between the peoples.
Little is known of Polish history prior to the end of the tenth century, but from that time on the Poles played an important and heroic role in saving Western Europe from repeated invasions of Tatar, Magyar, Hun, and Turk.
In common with the rest of Europe during the Middle Ages, the government of Poland was feudal in character. However, the Polish peasant was never reduced to the sad state of serfdom which was found in the rest of Europe. Always they enjoyed rights of personal liberty and freedom to move from place to place. On the other hand, there was a class of serfs whose condition was probably worse than that of the serfs of other countries. These serfs were former prisoners of war and their descendants, who had been settled upon the estates of the great nobles. This class had a generally injurious effect upon the economic status of the peasants and might well have had on the peasants’ political status except for the vigorous defense made by the clergy on behalf of the rights of peasant and townsman alike.
From this time on, while the surrounding nations evolved into “benevolent” despotisms, Poland developed a strange type of aristocracy. Though elections usually followed hereditary lines, the king was selected by ballot. The council or Sejm was composed of the nobility, each of whom possessed the right of liberum veto, that is, a single adverse vote could defeat any legislation, no matter how necessary it might be. Such a system was easily sabotaged. If a foreign power wished to prevent Poland from taking action on any matter, including raising troops for self-defense, its emissaries had only to convince or bribe a single noble. Under the influence of this system Poland became practically defenseless, and in 1772, Russia, Prussia, and Austria each took a sizeable slice of Polish territory.
The nobility realized that this helplessness was caused by the system of government. In 1791, selecting a holiday season when all of the nobility would normally be away from the capital, some of the more patriotic nobles, who had remained in the capital for the purpose, held a session of the Sejm and adopted a new constitution. Evils were corrected by the introduction of a degree of democracy. The liberum veto was abolished; the electoral base was broadened; class distinction was abolished; towns were given administrative and judicial autonomy and representation in the Sejm; townsmen were given the privileges of owning land, and of holding office in church or state; the peasants were protected by law; and the conditions of the serfs were ameliorated and steps taken toward the ultimate abolition of serfdom. Such freedom was not acceptable to the powerful “benevolent” dictatorships which bordered Poland, and in 1793, the second partition of Poland took place. This was followed shortly by a third partitioning, after which Poland disappeared as an independent nation until 1918.
During the period of captivity, the Polish patriots never abandoned the goal of a free, united, and independent Poland. World War I presented them with a great opportunity. Under the leadership of Pilsudski, the Poles sought a chance to fight on either side which offered an opportunity to achieve freedom. Finally, President Wilson announced, as point thirteen of his famous fourteen points, that one of the conditions for peace was a free and independent Poland. Pilsudski had found his man. By the thousands Poles found their way to France; others who had been fighting in the armies of the Central Powers mutinied or deserted. At the end of the war the question of Polish boundaries proved troublesome. Lord Curzon suggested a border for the east which roughly followed the ethnographical frontier; however, in order to make the nation economically sound, it was necessary to place the eastern boundary somewhat beyond this.
In 1920, the Soviet Union sent its troops into this area, and for a time it seemed that the new republic would be stillborn. However, France loaned General Weygand to advise the Polish general staff, Pilsudski issued an appeal for more troops, to which the Polish people responded magnificently, and soon the forces of the Red aggressors were in full retreat. On March 18, 1921, the treaty of Riga fixed the Polish border. This treaty was ratified by the Sejm on April 17, 1921. In 1929 the Soviet Union and Poland signed a protocol pledging observation of the principles of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact in their mutual relations. In 1932 the two states concluded a Non-Aggression Pact, which was extended in 1934 to be valid until December 31, 1945.
During the period between the two world wars, Poland rested its hopes for security on a mutual assistance pact with France and on its “friendship” treaties with the Soviet Union. Following the debacle at Munich, France and Great Britain attempted to deter further aggression by ironclad mutual assistance treaties with the smaller nations, including Poland, which bordered on Nazi Germany. With the Soviet Union bound by its treaties with Poland at least to benevolent neutrality, the world seemed to have a chance for peace. Because of its racial ties with Poland, as well as the inherent antipathy which seemed to exist between the Nazi and Communistic philosophies, the free world had reason to believe that the Soviets would support the efforts to maintain peace. Unfortunately for the hopes of humanity, the Kremlin oligarchy rightly thought that it saw in a general war a chance to advance the cause of Communist world domination. On August 23, 1939, the free world was shocked to learn that its trust in the Kremlin was tragically misplaced. The non- aggression pact of that date left Hitler with free hands to deal with the West.
Poland was doomed. Eight days later Hitler’s army crossed the border. Although tragically unprepared, France and Great Britain loyally declared war on Germany in support of their ally. However, before any pressure could be brought to bear on Germany and while the small, poorly equipped Polish army was locked in a death struggle with the overwhelming might of Hitler’s mechanized legions, on September 17, 1939, the nation with whom she had a solemn nonaggression pact invaded Poland from the east.
Under this dual assault the Polish military forces collapsed. Warsaw fell on September 27, 1939, thereby terminating organized resistance by armies in the field. Individuals and individual units of the Polish forces surrendered or were captured; but there was no general surrender and no armistice. The Nazis and their ally simply occupied all of the territory.
On September 28, just eleven days after the Soviet’s treacherous invasion, by the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, Molotov and Von Ribbentrop divided the spoils. By a secret protocol to their Agreement of August 23, 1939, the Nazis and Soviets had agreed that the Polish territory west of the line of the Rivers Narew, Vistula, and San was to fall in the Nazi sphere of influence, and the Polish territory east of that line in the Soviet sphere. However, the treaty provided that the province of Lublin and parts of the province of Warsaw were to be added to the German spoils, in return for which the Nazis agreed to transfer Lithuania from German to Soviet disposition.
After the fall of Warsaw, the Polish government fled to France and later, under General Sikorski, to London. Such of the Polish forces as could be extricated were placed at the disposal of the Allies. Representatives of the Polish Government-in-exile remained behind to organize an underground government and army. The government consisted of a coalition of leaders drawn from the four major political parties, the Socialist, the Nationalist, the Polish Peasant, and the Christian Labor parties. Couriers traveled continuously between the underground leaders and the headquarters of the government in London. Thus the government-in-exile was never a powerless group of refugees, but a true “continuation of the Polish Nation” with forces fighting at the side of Poland’s allies and with a valuable and powerful underground army directed by representatives of the Polish government.
Immediately after this fourth partitioning of Poland, the Soviet started a policy of exiling persons whom they considered might be capable of furnishing some degree of leadership to the other Poles. Over 15,000 former army officers were among the million-and-a- half people who were transported. These unfortunates were taken to Russia where they worked as slave laborers in the woods, in temperatures that sometimes reached fifty degrees below zero. No barracks were provided except those which the slaves built for themselves, and the food consisted mainly of black bread and weak porridge. Needless to say, many perished from weakness and exposure; but, as we shall see, even this rapid natural attrition was not fast enough to suit the Soviets.
In June of 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Great Britain was overjoyed, but Poland remained justly suspicious of her former enemy. Nevertheless she signed a military pact with the Soviets on August 14, 1941, which, on December 4, 1941, was expanded into a full treaty of alliance. It was specified that the Polish prisoners would be released and that a Polish army would be formed in the Soviet Union. The Soviet-Nazi treaties of August 23 and September 28, 1939, relating to the distribution of Polish territory were abrogated. It must be pointed out that by entering into a treaty with the Polish government-in-exile, the Soviet Union extended to that body formal recognition as the legal government of Poland.
The Soviets did not at once release all Polish prisoners, and it was found that 15,000 Polish officers had mysteriously disappeared. General Sikorsky went to Moscow to ask about them, but Stalin denied any knowledge of them.
Meanwhile President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill had met in mid-Atlantic and formulated the Atlantic Charter which proclaimed “the right of all people to choose the type of government under which they will live” and laid down the principle that territorial changes should not be made unless they coincided with the freely expressed will of the inhabitants. Using this as a basis, in March, 1943, Stalin declared that the area of Poland east of the Curzon Line should be Soviet territory. It will be remembered that the Curzon Line was roughly ethnographic, but as the territory in question was at that time still under occupation by the German Army, it is not understood how even Soviet logic could have deduced that the people of that area had chosen the type of government under which they wished to live, or that this announced territorial change coincided with the freely expressed will of the inhabitants.
The Polish government immediately protested to Great Britain and the United States this announcement of intent to violate the pact of December!, 1941, under which Soviet claim to Polish territory, awarded to them by Molotov-Von Ribbentrop agreement of September 23, 1939, had been renounced. However, as the question at the time was purely academic, the territory being under enemy occupation, and as Churchill and Roosevelt probably feared that the Soviets, if thwarted, might betray civilization anew by again changing sides, they postponed taking a stand on the issue.
On April 13, 1943, the German radio announced the discovery of several mass graves in the Katyn Forest, about 550 miles west of Moscow. According to the statement, these graves contained the bodies of about ten thousand Polish officers, who, with their hands tied behind their backs, had been shot in the nape of the neck. The Soviets immediately claimed that the Germans were responsible. Well aware that they had made a discovery of considerable propaganda value, and probably knowing that their reputation in the fields of atrocities and propaganda was such that there was little likelihood that credence would be placed in their discovery unless the facts were substantiated, the Nazis demanded an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Polish Government in London also asked for an impartial investigation of Katyn by the International Red Cross. That organization responded that it would investigate if all interested parties, including the Soviet Union, were willing to participate. The Soviets refused to participate and abruptly severed diplomatic relations with the Polish Government, denouncing the Poles for “collaborating with the Nazis” by requesting an impartial investigation.
In the circumstances, the Nazis proceeded to set up an investigating body composed primarily of recognized experts in legal medicine, drawn, with one exception, from areas under German occupation or influence. These physicians and scientists definitely established that the officers had been dead for over three years, and therefore had been killed before the German occupation of that area.
Major Van Vliet of the United States Army was at that time a prisoner of the Germans. The Nazis sent him along with other Allied prisoners of war to examine the evidence. Later he stated that he had hated the Germans arid had tried to find ways to blame them for the massacre, but he had been forced to admit that it was the work of the Soviets. The same conclusion was reached by the other Allied prisoners of war who had been brought to the site, and by a Swedish journalist and others, all of whom had expected to find evidence at Katyn of another Nazi propaganda stunt.
In December, 1943, a conference was held at Teheran, Iran, between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Premier Stalin.
Foreseeing that Poland would be discussed, Prime Minister Mikolajczyk (of the Polish- Government-in exile) attempted to arrange a meeting to discuss Poland’s stand on the subject of borders with Roosevelt and Churchill. These latter, apparently fearing that such a meeting might cause Stalin to postpone the conference, declined. Consequently at Teheran neither Churchill nor Roosevelt was well prepared on the subject, and both were anxious to obtain a Soviet agreement to enter the war against Japan. The subject of Soviet- Polish borders did come up as a typical Communist condition precedent. Stalin proposed the Curzon Line as the eastern border. There does not seem to have been much discussion of this proposal, although Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Minister, did suggest that the border run to the east of Lwow; however, Stalin demanded this oil rich territory as part of the Soviet booty. No definite decision on Lwow was reached.
In evaluating Teheran, it must be remembered that the war was far from won, and that Churchill and Roosevelt both considered it necessary to cement the Soviet Union to their side. Poland was still occupied by the Nazis, and the question of her borders probably did not seem as important as insuring victory by keeping Stalin as an ally. It is difficult to believe that these distinguished statesmen would accede to this ridiculous proposition, and possibly they did not consider the matter as definitely settled, although later when Molotov stated that it had been decided neither of them denied it. Possibly they considered that if, by some concession of Polish territory, to be compensated by territory from Germany, a post-war world with friendly relations between all nations could be achieved, the deviation from the excellent principles of the Atlantic Charter might well be justified. Also the Curzon Line did follow the ethnographic border.
In Poland by July, 1944, the Germans were falling back before the Soviet advance. On July 22, 1944, a Committee of National Liberation was established at Lublin under the sponsorship of the Soviet Union. In spite of the military alliance of December 4, 1941, the claim was advanced that this committee was the true Polish Government.
A week later, with the Red Army only ten miles away, the Polish Government-in-exile ordered the underground army into battle to assist in the capture of Warsaw. The Polish Home Army, under General Bor, arose and attacked the Germans inside the city.
Realizing that the Home Army did not have the equipment to fight the Germans alone and probably feeling that by his action he would force the Polish Government-in exile to abdicate in favor of the Lublin Committee rather than see their army destroyed, Stalin ordered the Soviet Army to cease its advance, and instead called Prime. Minister Mikolajczyk to Moscow to discuss aid to the Polish Home Army. He demanded that the Lublin Committee be recognized as having equal authority with the properly constituted Polish Government and that the Poles accept the Curzon Line as the eastern frontier. The Polish Prime Minister did not have authority to make such concessions even had he been willing. So the Red Army did nothing except to try to hinder the efforts of the Americans and British to get supplies to Bor’s gallant soldiers. The men of the Polish Home Army were slaughtered or captured. Never before in history has there been such a cynical betrayal of brave allies; never has there been a more excellent example of Soviet faith.
Shortly after Stalin’s conference with Mikolajczyk, Molotov announced to American Ambassador Averill Harriman that the Soviet Union would not aid the Polish Home Army because of “criticisms launched by press and radio against Russia, by Poles who warned the world to put no trust in Soviet intentions toward Poland.”
On October 3, 1944, after more than two months of bitter and heroic fighting, the remnant of the Polish Home Army surrendered. The Soviet Union had succeeded in its coldly premeditated crime against Poland. The Polish Government in London was discredited; the Polish Home Army was destroyed; nothing was left to dispute the Lublin Committee. The betrayal was complete. Soviet faith!
After Bor’s fate had been sealed at Warsaw, Mikolajczyk journeyed to Moscow where he met with Eden, Churchill, and Stalin. Averill Harriman was also present as the United States observer. The objectives of the meeting were to discuss the Polish borders and to determine the relationship between the Lublin Committee and the Polish Government-in-exile. The Soviets demanded that Poland accept the Curzon Line as the eastern boundary. Mikolajczyk refused. Molotov then arose and announced that the matter was a closed issue, that the “Big Three” had decided the matter at the Teheran conference. Mikolajczyk still refused to yield and the meeting terminated' without agreement on the question.
Later, in London, Churchill urged Mikolajczyk to accept the terms of the Soviet Union, expressing the fear that, if he did not do so, the Soviet Union would take over all of Poland. Reluctantly the Polish Prime Minister agreed, provided that Lwow and the surrrounding oil fields went to Poland, and that Great Britian and the United States would guarantee that the rest of Poland would remain free. Despite anticipated difficulties with Parliament,- Churchill agreed to give the guarantees. The United States, however, declined to make any guarantees concerning frontiers.
The Polish Government strongly disapproved Mikolajczyk’s offer to make this concession, and as a result Mikolajczyk resigned. Tomasz Arciszewski was named Prime Minister of the Polish Government- in-exile.
Arciszewski immediately attempted to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union. However, his offers were met, on January 5, 1945, by Stalin recognizing the Lublin Committee as the national government of Poland. Arciszewski replied that the exiled government in London was the only one constitutionally qualified to speak for the Polish State. Great Britain and the United States immediately announced that they would continue to recognize the Polish Government in London. Lublin and Moscow ignored them completely. Boleslaw Bierut was named Prime Minister of the Lublin government and immediately ceded to the Soviet Union everything which the Russians demanded.
The second conference between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill was held at Yalta from January 22, 1945 until February 12, 1945. One of the most important of the topics which were considered was the Polish question.
The Curzon Line was definitely accepted as the eastern boundary; however, Poland was to receive Lwow and the surrounding oil fields. Also, the western border was to be extended at the expense of Germany. Stalin suggested that this border follow the Neisse River to the Czechoslovakian frontier. Churchill, while agreeing that Poland should have some compensation from Germany for the territory lost to the Soviet Union, felt that the proposed extension was too great. The western border was not definitely determined at this conference.
The most important problem concerning Poland was the question of government. The Soviet Union recognized the Lublin Committee as a provisional government. The United States and Great Britain recognized the Polish Government-in-exile as the legal government of Poland. Such a situation was not conducive to the lasting peace to which all three of the powerful leaders paid lip service, and which Roosevelt and Churchill, at least, ardently desired and confidently expected to achieve. Undoubtedly believing that the freely expressed will of the people of Poland would overwhelmingly support a democratic form of free government, it probably did not appear important to Roosevelt and Churchill whether the Lublin or the London government was accepted as the Provisional government, provided a free election was held in the immediate future. They agreed to the organization of a “Polish Provisional Government of National Unity,” under the presidency of Bierut, to consist of thirteen members of the Lublin Committee, two members from the Government-in-exile, and two members from within Poland. In exchange for this, it was agreed that a “free and unfettered” general election would be held within a month. Thus the continued occupation of Poland by the Red Army and the Communists was confirmed, in exchange for a promise grounded on Soviet faith. It cannot be conceived that these two great statesmen, who had successfully led the free world through the greatest war in history, intended to abandon their ally. Probably they privately agreed to insist on the free and unfettered election and to abide thereby in accordance with the traditional belief of the Anglo-Saxon nations, that, for any people, a government is proper which derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. But death removed one of Poland’s potential protectors shortly after Yalta, and following Potsdam the vagaries of British politics rendered the other impotent.
One equally great, although less powerful statesman, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, disagreed violently with Churchill and Roosevelt. Regarding the action taken concerning Poland, he said in a letter to Frank Januszwki of the Polish Daily News of Detroit, “I could get no greater personal satisfaction out of anything more than joining—aye, in leading—a public denunciation of Yalta and all its works. ...”
Prior to adjournment at Yalta, Molotov for the Soviet Union, Averill Harriman for the United States, and Sir Arthur Clark- Kerr for Great Britain were appointed as a commission to see that the terms of the Yalta agreement were carried out and to assist the Polish leaders in the formation of their new Provisional Government of National Unity. Although the Yalta conference terminated on February 12, 1945, and the elections were to be held within a month, by the middle of June no election had been held, and there was no indication that one was about to be held in the immediate future. The Molotov- Harriman-Kerr committee had made little progress on their reorganization of the Polish Government. On June 17, 1945, a meeting was held at Moscow attended by the committee, the Lublin committee, and Polish officials from London. The Reds, realizing that Mikolajczyk was loved and trusted by the Poles, offered him a place in the government. Feeling that he could probably do more good as a member of the Provisional Government than if he were outside, Mikolajczyk accepted, bringing into the government with him another London Pole, Jan Stanczyk. The provisional government took over the ruling of Poland.
After the surrender of Germany, Major Van Vliet was released. He was immediately flown to Washington, where he told the story of his observation of the graves in the Katyn forest to General Clayton Bissell, head of Army Intelligence at the time. His report was prepared in single original manuscript without copies and was classified as “Top Secret.” The document subsequently disappeared from the files of G-2 and has never been found. According to General Bissell, the report was sent at once to the Department of State; however, the Department of State denied ever having received the document. The investigations both by the Army and by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Katyn Massacre supported the contention of the Department of State in the matter. There is no evidence to indicate that this document, which so poignantly illustrated Soviet feeling toward the Poles, ever came to President Truman prior to the Potsdam conference.
Indeed, Truman, as vice president, was not kept as well informed on the international situation generally, and Soviet-American and Soviet-Polish relations specifically, as he should have been considering the precarious state of Roosevelt’s health. He had not been advised of the precise details of the agreement at Yalta, and was not invited to sit in on cabinet meetings. By the time the Potsdam conference was held, he had been President only a few months, and there had been myriads of other details which required time and attention. Probably, had Roosevelt lived, or had Truman known of the duplicity practiced by the Soviet Union in its relations with Poland, the United States would have been more firm in requiring safeguards for the Polish elections.
The meeting between Stalin, Churchill, and Truman was held at Potsdam, Germany, from July 6 to August 7, 1945.
The principle that the eastern border of Poland should follow approximately the Curzon Line had been settled at Yalta. At Potsdam the participating heads of state agreed that, pending the final determination of Poland’s western frontier, the former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse Line, including that portion of East Prussia not placed under the administration of the U.S.S.R., should be under the administration of the Polish State. The agreement specified that this Polish portion of East Prussia was not to be considered as a part of the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. This clause was advantageous because it provided an area to which Polish refugees could go. As regards the political implications of Potsdam concerning Poland, the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity was confirmed in its power.
Following Potsdam the Red dominated Provisional Government began a policy, on the one hand, of abject submission to the Soviet Union and, on the other, of oppression and terror within the nation. Shortly after the Potsdam meeting Polish President Bierut and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov made an agreement whereby the U.S.S.R. was to receive fifty-one percent of all of the properties which Poland had acquired in the west as a result of the decisions reached at Potsdam. Mikolajczyk raised such an argument over this pact that it was rescinded, and instead an agreement was substituted whereby Poland was to sell to the Soviet Union twelve million tons of coal a year at a price of five dollars a ton. However, when the pact was actually drawn up the Soviets cut the price to one dollar and twenty-five cents a ton.
Mikolajczyk hoped that he could save Poland from Red domination through the Polish Peasant Party. Apparently the Communists feared that he might be able to accomplish this, for the state controlled press promptly began a campaign of villification against the party and its leaders. Some of the leaders mysteriously disappeared, and later were found in some unpopulated area—murdered. In the region of Wroclaw all of the members of the executive committee of the party were arrested on false charges. Some of these men were cruelly tortured; tongues were cut out; finger and toe nails ripped off; eyes were seared with hot pokers.
Still there were no elections!
On December 29, 1945, a temporary Sejm was formed. According to a previous agreement, the Polish Peasant Party should have received one hundred and forty-five seats. However, at the meeting they were offered fifty-two. It was either take those or nothing, and matters of vital interest to the party and to Poland were coming up. The party accepted and did manage to keep agriculture from becoming collectivized. However, they were unable to do anything about securing a free press.
In spite of intimidation, the Polish Peasant Party grew to amazing proportions. The Communists realized that the kidnapping and murder of some of the leaders would not be enough. Direct action must be taken against the meetings. At first hecklers were sent to try to disrupt them. When this failed, the Provisional Government used its security police and finally its army to break up meetings by force.
In late 1945, Vice Premier Mikolajczyk visited Washington, where he made a strong plea for American economic aid to Poland. Two loans were made to Poland in April 1946, a $40 million loan extended by the Export-Import Bank for the purchase of United States coal mining machinery and loading and railway equipment, and a $50 million line of credit for the purchase of surplus property of civilian utility. Arthur Bliss Lane, the American Ambassador to Poland, had carried on the negotiations at Warsaw involving both loans. In March of 1946, he had wired Washington recommending against the loans until such time as the reign of terror had ceased. However, when various political and economic commitments, including the Polish Government’s pledge to hold free elections, were received, the Department of State decided that the arguments in favor of granting the loans outweighed those against making them.
Shipments of Polish coal were of considerable importance to Western European recovery. Also it was believed that this economic aid would assist the anti-Communist forces led by Mikolajczyk within the Polish Government in fending off full Soviet control over Poland. The credits were once suspended because the political and economic agreements were not being fulfilled, but were reinstated after certain objections were satisfied. Subsequently, when the Communist grip on Poland tightened, the unused part of the surplus property credit was cut off effective January 31, 1948.
The “free and unfettered” elections were finally set for mid-January, 1947. Several months previous to the date, Stalin issued instructions to his Polish puppet government as to the course which the elections were to follow. Some of the seats in the Sejm were to go to the Polish Peasant Party, some to the Socialists, but the overwhelming majority were to be Communists. Mikolajczyk in his book The Rape of Poland indicates that someone brought up the question as to American and British reaction when those nations discovered that the election returns had been falsified. Stalin is reported to have replied, “Do not worry about the Americans and the British. There will be no war about the Polish elections. They will probably protest, but it will be only a paper protest.”
Mikolajczyk either discovered the plans for the rigged election, or else he suspected them, for, in December of 1946, he sent a memorandum to the U. S. State Department urging intervention by the Yalta powers in the interests of securing a fair election. The State Department replied by sending a note to the Provisional Government demanding that free elections be held. As usual, the note was ignored. When the elections were finally held they followed exactly the course which Stalin had outlined. A Socialist by the name of Cyrankiewicz, whom Stalin felt might fool the west into believing that fair elections had been held, was selected as Prime Minister. When President Truman finally learned the truth about the Polish elections he was truly shocked and said so in a blistering letter to the now “legal” Polish Government. But it was only a letter, and too late; besides, the contempt of mankind has never bothered a Communist.
Immediately following the “election,” the now “legal” Communist Government went ahead with its program of reducing the people to economic bondage. All banks were taken over by the state, and the people were obliged to keep their money in them. Businesses large and small became state corporations. All goods were manufactured and distributed by the state. In a move toward collectivization of farms, the peasants were impoverished by raising the taxes on farm produce to impossible proportions. Labor unions were outlawed. The state took over the supervision of housing, reserving the right to evict “undesirables” and to redistribute living quarters. Students who desired higher education were required to appear before a board where political affiliations rather than scholastic aptitude became the criterion determining admission to a university.
In accordance with the atheistic doctrines of Communism, the state has waged undeclared but scarcely disguised war on the church. Over ninety per cent of all Poles are Catholics. Priests are arrested and “tried” for espionage, sabotage, and other crimes. Late in 1952, Archbishop Eugene Boziak was arrested for “crimes” against the state. In September, 1953, Bishop Czeslaw Kaczmarek, together with four of his diocesan assistants, was subjected to a show trial on espionage and anti-state charges and sentenced to long prison terms. In the same month the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wysznski, became the victim of the terror when he was arrested and forced to “retire.” Crimes and accidents generally are blamed on Catholic teachings.
Such is Poland under the Red terror!
At this point it would be well to review the record of Soviet faith as exemplified by the dealings of the Soviet Union with Poland over the past decade and a half.
The Soviet Union broke faith with the entire free world by entering into a “nonaggression” pact with Germany on August 23, 1939, well knowing that the purpose of that pact was to permit Germany to attack Poland. This was a violation of the spirit of the non-aggression and friendship treaties of 1932 and 1934, with Poland. As shown in the Department of State publication of 1948, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, a secret additional protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact provided for the partitioning of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union in flagrant violation of the Soviet-Polish agreements of 1932 and 1934.
On September 17, 1939, while the Polish armed forces were engaged in a death struggle with the Nazi invaders, the Soviet Union, treacherously, and in direct violation of its non-aggression pacts of 1932 and 1934, attacked Poland.
The Molotov-Von Ribbentrop agreement of September 28, 1939, allotted certain Polish territory to the Soviet Union. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the latter entered into a military agreement on August 14, 1941, with the Polish Government-in-exile, which was later, on December 4, 1941, expanded into a full alliance. By the terms of this agreement and this alliance, the Soviet Union abrogated its claim to the territory ceded to it by the German agreement. Yet, the Soviet Union later insisted upon obtaining and did seize this territory.
By entering into an alliance with the Polish Government-in-exile on December 4, 1941, the Soviet Union recognized that government as the legal government of Poland. Yet, in violation of this recognition, and of the terms of this alliance, the Soviet Union did cause a Committee of National Liberation to be set up at Lublin on July 22, 1944, and did, on January 5, 1945, recognize this committee as the National Government of Poland.
Following its conquest of eastern Poland, in September, 1939, the Soviet Union, in violation of all laws of warfare, and of humanity, seized approximately one-and-a-half million Poles and transported them from their homeland and forced them to serve as slave laborers in a foreign land.
From among these slave laborers, the Soviet Union caused or permitted, in one group, of which we have certain knowledge, the brutal murder of some ten thousand former Polish officers, and attempted to blame this despicable crime upon their former allies, the Germans. Thus, the Red judges at the war crime trials at Nuremberg sat as representatives of a state which was guilty of crimes similar to those for which the accused were being tried.
At the end of July, 1944, with the Soviet Army but ten miles from Warsaw, the Polish Home Army under General Bor arose from the underground, to assist the Red Army in the capture of Warsaw. The Soviet forces were ordered to halt their advance until such time as the Germans should destroy Bor’s Army. This cynical betrayal of brave men was done admittedly and solely for political advantage, and constitutes an act of treachery and duplicity which has few parallels in history.
In exchange for recognition of a government which was overwhelmingly constituted from the members of the Communist controlled Lublin Committee, the Soviet Union agreed, at Yalta, that free and unfettered elections would be held within a month, that would be by March 12, 1945. The elections in fact were not held until mid-January, 1947, a period of over 23 months. The Provisional Government employed the interim in persecution and oppression of opposing political leaders, and in suppression, by the police power and the armed forces of the state, of opposition political assemblies.
At the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the Soviet Union pledged its faith that the Polish elections would be free and unfettered. Several months before these elections were held, the oligarchy which directs the Soviet Union, prepared plans to falsify the results and steal the elections. These plans were effectuated by the puppet provisional government of Poland. As a result of these fraudulent elections a government was placed in power which was completely subservient to the Soviet Union, contrary to the will of the people, and to the solemn agreements of the Soviet Union.
Whether the world is to have peace, cold war, or all-out war will be determined solely by the decision of the leaders of the Soviet Union as to the course of action which will best serve the cause of Communist world domination. If they believe that greater strains will be produced upon the economies of the nations of the free world by a lessening of international tensions, they will make peace, probably with apparent reluctance, wringing from the free nations as many concessions as possible. Although this peace- hungry world will undoubtedly make some concessions, the forces of freedom will accomplish nothing by them because war or peace will not be made on the merits of the issues involved but on the basis of over-all Soviet policy.
The top planning body of the United States is the National Security Council. It is composed of the Secretaries of the pertinent departments, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and certain civilians appointed by the President of the United States. The personnel composing this council are highly intelligent men who have had wide experience in the field in which they serve. They are supplied with the most up-to-date intelligence and with the best military advice obtainable. These men are aware both of the cost of our armed forces and of the desirability for a reduction in arms expenditures. If the Communists make peace throughout the world, it will undoubtedly be possible to ease the burden of armament. If this is true, we may anticipate that the National Security Council will realize it and will strive for the proper balance between the need for adequate armed forces and the need for a sound economy.
Any decision which the Council reaches, other than complete disarmament, will be subjected to ridicule, and their advisers, the “brass hats,” will be held up to contempt by the Communists, their sympathizers, and their dupes.
Nothing can be done to lessen the pressure which will be put upon the National Security Council by those Americans who have treason in their hearts, but the efforts of traitors would be feeble without the assistance of many thousands of loyal but unthinking dupes. This pressure can be lessened if the American people know the truth. Each man must consider whether he is willing to rest the safety of the United States, and the freedom of the world, upon Communist protestations of peaceful intention. He must be able to see the insincerity of these protestations, as he will, if he considers Soviet faith as exemplified in the relations of the Soviet Union with Poland.